For the Global Law course at the Maastricht University Faculty of Law, I built a little game called Sea Level Rise.
The idea is simple: you are the government of a small island State facing an insurgency, international pressure, and a rising ocean. Each round the game deals you three event cards. You pick one, flip a coin, and see what happens.
The sea swallows one hex of your territory every round regardless of what you do. There is no card in the deck that addresses climate change itself. You can only manage the consequences. That structural limitation mirrors how international law currently treats the relationship between climate and conflict, and students tend to notice it before the debrief even starts.
At the end, the game generates a log of every decision, every outcome, and a reading annotation connecting each card to the course material: Cusato on securitisation, Mai on crisis and transformations, Leonelli on critical raw materials, Wainwright and Geoff Mann on sovereign futures, Farrell and Newman on weaponised interdependence.
My students responded well to it, though there is still plenty to improve. It runs in the browser, works on phones, and supports both single-player and two-player modes. No installation or login needed.
If you teach international law, climate governance, or anything in that space, feel free to use it. Feedback is welcome.
Play it here: https://henriquejbmarcos.github.io/sea-level-rise/
Developed with the support of the Department of Foundations of Law at the Maastricht University Faculty of Law.
Henrique Marcos 